At the end of the first millennium, most people in the Eastern Hemisphere had a firm sense of how the world was arranged, who occupied it, and how they had come to be where they were. Various sacred texts as well as long-standing folk beliefs suggested a virtually eternal order of things, instilling a sort of reassuring confidence in a stable and entirely predictable existence. However, forces were emerging that would open up new possibilities and engender a new restlessness that would shatter provincial confidence and stability as a new more cosmopolitan world emerged. A new era of American history was about to spring from the most unexpected of places.More »

Sub Eras

With an introduction by Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History and Anthropology, University of Southern California, and Director, USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies InstituteMore »